


Alone

by Hormonal_Trashbag



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, The Walking Dead AU, rivamika, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 07:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4910341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hormonal_Trashbag/pseuds/Hormonal_Trashbag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She made a fierce first impression, emerging from a dense thicket, sword drawn and bloody, two walkers strung up in chains, following her like pet dogs. She wore a pair of well-worn riding boots, and a dark, forest green cloak, its hood drawn up over her head, concealing the upper half of her face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Not gonna lie, I am dying for the next season of The Walking Dead. So I rewatched some old stuff. And then this was born. I feel like zombie-apocalypse AUs work really well with SNK.

She made a fierce first impression, emerging from a dense thicket, sword drawn and bloody, two walkers strung up in chains, following her like pet dogs. She wore a pair of well-worn riding boots, and a dark, forest green cloak, its hood drawn up over her head, concealing the upper half of her face.

Levi is fairly certain that he hadn’t felt real fear since the outbreak first began. When she shook her hood off, her hair falling into her face, her eyes intense with the justified rage of a woman who had lost everything, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He lifted his pistol from it’s holster, turning off the safety.

He didn’t aim his weapon at her--Levi never killed a person he didn’t have to--but instead at one of her pets. It was the shorter of the two, and while Levi was sure it had once been an attractive young man, its skin was now a pale grey, its blond hair ashen and tangled. It’s arms had been sliced off, undoubtedly at her hand, and it’s jaw unhinged, teeth removed.

The woman had the gall to growl at him. She was very much like a wild animal, posed to strike.

“Shoot him, and I’ll kill you,” she promised, her voice low and gravelly. It had been a long time since she had last spoken aloud.

He frowned, turning his narrow eyes at her other follower. It was a bit taller, with shaggy brown hair and even more unruly eyebrows; it had been given the same treatment as the first, and stood armless with a gaping, toothless maw.

“It’s not a him anymore,” he replied flatly, gun still raised.

She snarled, teeth gnashing at him, as if she were a feral wolf. “You don’t get to decide that.” 

This much was true, Levi hadn’t decided anything, but that didn’t change the fact that the walkers she had following her around were undeniably nonhuman. Humans (usually) had some semblance of sanity, and they certainly didn’t go around eating each other, flesh rotting from their bones.

But in any case, he really wasn’t looking for a fight. The two walkers standing at her wings were relatively harmless; he couldn’t deny the genius of her removing their arms, giving them no way to claw and grab, and their jaws and teeth, taking away their ability bite, but the very concept of turning them docile as she had created a pit in his stomach.

Still uncertain, he lowered the pistol. It remained in his hand though, and this was not beyond her notice.

There was the snap of a twig underfoot and a muffled groan in the dark woods behind her, ending their stalemate for the moment. She moved with speed and economy, her sword cutting through the air with a sharp ring, before it slid through the skull of a wandering dead with ease. Beneath her cloak her arms were bare, and her pale skin was stretched taut with cord-like muscles, and he watched them with a small amount of awe as she shook the decaying blood from the steel of her blade. 

She was everything his late wife wasn’t; tall, strong and stormy, and Levi had to wonder what had turned her into such an untamed creature of the wild. Loneliness? Or perhaps it had more to do with her wingmen, gurgling and moaning behind her. Levi found himself pitying her. The world was cruel, and this beautiful, feral wolf had not escaped that. 

“What’s your name?” he asked. He knew this was the wrong decision, he should let her remain where she had come to belong, in the woods.

Her voice was despondent. No one had asked her that in a long time. “Mikasa.”

Levi nodded slowly in understanding. “How many walkers have you killed, Mikasa?”

Her gaze remained hard, but there was no denying the tiredness in their depths.

“Too many,” she said, an unexpected softness seeping into her lilt.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa kept to herself, for the most part, even after following Levi back to his camp. His people were hopeful and sturdy, while she felt as if she could be blown away at any moment. She had been on her own since nearly the beginning. All she had now was the dim, feeble shadows of Eren and Armin.

They were her world, her friends, her family. Even after watching them succumb to the fever, then fade from consciousness all together. What was left now was their physical appearances, and even those were deteriorating. Levi had not been very tolerant of Eren and Armin’s presence in the camp, and she could understand, on an intellectual level, why he would be uncomfortable.

She should have been thankful that he had extended the invitation to join his group. Mikasa needed to feel human again, she had lost too much of herself, ambling through the woods for months on end, fending off the worst of humanity, dead or alive. It had been so long since anyone had paid her common curtesy, it was strangely difficult to adjust to. 

Yet, despite everything Levi and his people had done for her, a stranger, she was hesitant to integrate herself into their ranks. She hung off in the outskirts, not willing to get closer, and despite the relative security (after all, in this new world, being completely secure was impossible), she still stayed up most nights, running her blade against stone.

Jean, a sweet enough guy, came to see her after a few days, and though he pretended to be indifferent, she knew he couldn’t keep his eyes off Eren and Armin, standing sentinels, always within the reach of her sword, always watching with unblinking stares.

Eventually, most of the group gave up on her, and she was treated with polite indifference, which was fine by her. It was better to not make friends. When everything went to hell--because it always did--she would be okay.

Only Levi still showed any interest in talking to her.

It was early evening, and he came marching to her small campfire, shoulders thrown back in confidence. He wasn’t particularly tall, but that didn’t seem to matter. What he lacked in height he more than made up for in physical strength, and while Mikasa wasn’t sure she was fond of him, she could respect Levi. He had a presence that almost demanded it.

He was sipping black, fragrant coffee from a tin cup as he sat on her log.

“Your friends are probably starving,” he commented into his cup. Mikasa had learned that he was never one to beat about the bush.

She pressed her lips together in a line. “I know.”

He nodded his head thoughtfully, scratching the scruff of his chin. “Are you planning to keep them until the muscles of their legs rot off and they can’t walk?”

“Why do you care?”

He gave her a flat look, but said nothing. She wondered if she was pressing her luck with this group, though she was hardly considered a real part of it. It had been a few weeks of traveling through the woods with them, perhaps she should leave.

“What were their names?” he finally asked, his tone hushed.

“How should I know?” she hissed, “They’re just walkers--”

He interrupted, impatient. “If they were really just walkers to you, you would have ended them by now. But you haven’t. Which means they mattered to you. So, what were their names?”

Mikasa crossed her arms in defiance, glaring at her booted toes.

Yet, she found her mouth opening. “Eren Jaeger and Armin Arlert. We’ve known each other since kindergarten. Eren was my boyfriend.”

He didn’t mock her, like she expected him to. High school sweethearts? How sweet, she waited for him to sneer, but instead she felt a warm hand press to her shoulder. He didn’t look her way, or even at her skulking, deteriorating family, but instead he stared into the dark corners of the woods.

“My wife turned. I didn’t have a choice; I had to kill her.”

Mikasa stiffened, shrugging his hand off. “You didn’t have to do anything.”

“No,” he disagreed. “I did. She was a peaceful woman who couldn’t kill ants if they got into the kitchen...I didn’t deserve her. Do you honestly think a person like that would be okay with becoming a flesh-eating monster?"

She pulled her legs in, biting her lip until it bled. She knew what he was trying to get at.

When she said nothing, he asked, “Do you think Eren and Armin would be okay with it?”

She jabbed at her dying fire violently, hissing, “Don’t you say their names. You didn’t know them.”

They both knew the answer, though. Mikasa was being selfish, refusing to let them finally rest. For so long she had told herself that she didn’t need living people, she had Armin and Eren. But that wasn’t true. Her best friends were gone, and had been for a long time. Armin, travel-obsessed and kind and manipulative, was gone. Eren, stupid, sweet, and stubborn--dead.

Mikasa blindly continued to stoke the fire, her vision blurred.

“I can’t be alone.”

He, with some hesitance, wrapped an arm around her shoulder, taking her poker.

“You don’t have to be.”

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like it's been a long time since I've really sat down and written anything longer than a page for this ship. So hopefully it isn't too bad. Let me know what you think!


End file.
